matrix

Amen. I do a lot of recruiting and one of the signs that a candidate is high quality is when they know what they don't know.

It's rare for someone without a degree to get the kinds of jobs that exposes them to the kinds of engineering challenges that makes for "10 years experience" as opposed to "1 year experience 10 times over". I'm not saying it doesn't happen -- just that in my experience, it's rare.

Also, having a college degree shows a certain minimum ability to start something and finish it. The more challenging that degree program was, the more important that factor is. A 'degree' from DeVry or Phoenix doesn't count (I'd actually talk to the guy without a degree first...).

Nice straw man you've got there; I didn't say anything about the guy, let alone his feelings. Let's keep this discussion constructive.

I'm just sharing my perspective, based on experience -- these stories are misleading at best. Like all stories, they're far too neat. Reality is messier. Despite what the stories would have you believe, they still doesn't hear normally. They hear better. But not normally.

You know what the reality is? The reality is getting hearing aids and still not being able to use the phone to do phone interviews. And having people insist on it anyway. And then helplessly watching your dream job slip out of your grasp because you can't hear the interviewer's questions. Reality is being in school and failing, because the exam had a verbal component. And having the instructor just smirk. It's sitting as a bystander in conversations because you can't follow it. It's being passed over for promotions because you can't be trusted to hear important things. And nobody can see any of it happening. Except you.

That's the real story. A little piece of it. Yes, there are delightful moments with any improvement in hearing, but there's a larger context that always gets left out of these feel-good pieces.

I am an expert on the topic.

I was profoundly deaf. I wore hearing aids and later got a cochlear implant. And I've known several people in a similar position.

Trust me, these stories about people hearing for the first time are sensationalized, to say the least. I'm in no way minimizing how miraculous these devices are -- just be aware that the experience is quite different to that being portrayed in the media.

You are correct. When a cochlear implant is activated for the first time, everything sounds markedly different from how it sounds to normal hearing people. That lasts for at least first week, while the brain rapidly learns how to interpret the input.

The guy in this story is still not hearing music normally. Being profoundly deaf means having a very, very small amount of hearing, which is just enough for a powerful hearing aid to help. But he's almost certainly not hearing the full dynamic range of the music.

I have first-hand experience with all of this stuff, and I find this story be overblown, to say the least.

I think it's fair to say this is an example of the general rule that the answer to a headline in the form of a question is always "No".

Rails and Django will be replaced with something else sooner or later, but I have a hard time believing Meteor is it given their goal of being a commercial/enterprise offering.

Salt Lake City UT - Black Diamond (blackdiamondequipment.com)

BD is one of the iconic outdoor industry brands - we make equipment for rock and alpine climbing, skiing, and other outdoor sports. We're not in the software industry, but working here is far more fun than I ever had in that industry. BD has a smart, driven software team that is helping the company grow internationally at double-digits every year.

I'm looking for someone with strong SQL and development skills to join my team in a role that's part business analyst and part developer. This is not your typical corporate position - this is an opportunity to play a significant and highly visible role in the company.

You don't need to ski or climb to work here, but it's a plus!

Kind of late to the game, but David - or anyone else for that matter - I'm deaf too, and happy to talk with you about it.

In a nutshell: don't let deafness define you. It's hard, dispiriting work at times, but believe me, there's opportunity out there in all aspects of life if you approach things with the right can-do spirit (yes, this includes finding a partner - I'm exceptionally fortunate in that regard myself :-D ).

Salt Lake City, Utah

Black Diamond is hiring for entry level web developers and for an enterprise systems role. This is a rare opportunity to combine a passion for outdoor sports (climbing, skiing, mountaineering, and more) while working as part of a smart, motivated software team.

For more details, see the careers section at blackdiamondequipment.com

Salt Lake City, UT. Black Diamond

We're hiring .NET software developers to build the next generation of business systems for a very rapidly growing company. This is not a typical corporate gig; we have a very creative environment with lots of freedom. You would be part of a passionate group of people working as part of one of the most unusual environments a developer can find themselves in (you'll occasionally get to ski, climb and hike as part of the job).

http://www.blackdiamondequipment.com/

It's unfortunate that all non-software industry companies are getting tarred with the ".NET Shop" brush, because much depends on the company culture and who is running the development group. I've worked in some great gigs (and one or two awful ones) in settings you might not expect to be interesting and fun.

I'm hiring at the moment, and it's definitely in the "great gigs" category. Bonus, as part of this gig I occasionally get paid to ski and climb. Not that this has helped me find good candidates yet.

The mix matters because shares in a privately held company are not very liquid, and fair valuation of those shares is sometimes problematic. In short, there's a decent chance the shares will be considerably less valuable than the terms of the deal might suggest.

That said, I do feel this particular deal was a well-deserved success for the Wufoo guys. My congratulations to them for excellent execution!

If you have worked overseas or are an immigrant or otherwise a reside of the US, you may be unwittingly in violation of this law, and at risk of penalties so extreme that it defies belief.

In some countries your employer is required to open and contribute to a retirement fund similar to a 401(k). In Canada, it's called an RRSP, in Australia, Superannuation. If you have such an account, it's considered a foreign account and subject to FBAR - nevermind that you can no longer contribute to it, or benefit from it until you are at retirement age. In some cases, the law in the foreign country prevents you from closing or withdrawing from this type of account until you are at retirement age.

If you forget to report one of these accounts, or had no idea that you were supposed to report it, you face a $100,000 fine, seizure of the account, and jail time. If you cooperate with the IRS you might "only" lose the account.

This law was designed to target off-shore tax shelters, but the way it was written, the definition of "account" is vague, and the threshold levels so low that it affects millions of people. There is simply no justification for a law this broad and sweeping which such harsh penalties - it's an example of legislative overreach if I ever saw one.

Slightly off topic: what prompted you to leave nephrology? That's not something someone would do lightly, to say the least.

You're absolutely right; I jumped to conclusions a little too hastily.

That said, I just did a check on online reviews for a doctor I know well and whom I know has been one the most loved and respected doctors in the community for decades. I also know his reviews were excellent 6 months ago. However, today, there are now some 1 star reviews.

Hmmm...

I suggest calling your local FBI field office, and discussing your best course of action with an agent.

Most likely they'll tell you that you're on your own, but you never know. The level of loss is far below what normally interests them, but if you could show that this is widespread, that could change things.

I like the concept, but it would be nice to see a better selection of books about the craft of building software, rather than language guides. For example, books along the lines of "Code Complete", "The Pragmatic Programmer", etc.

I feel that Django's ORM is one the main reasons for its success. Yes, it's limited and simplistic compared to something like Hibernate -- but that's actually a blessing in this context. People love Django because it makes it so simple to build an application quickly. Without the built-in ORM, things like admin and generic views would be harder to implement and certainly wouldn't work anywhere nearly as nicely out of the box.

There are plenty of problems with Medicare, but patient input into pricing is not one of them. One of the comments on the article sums it up nicely:

"The information asymmetry between the doctor and patient is so great that a patient’s judgement about the value of a given treatment is meaningless. Not to mention that people are irrational actors. To go back to my pharmacy example: demand for cosmetic treatments is often less elastic than it is for treatments that will keep a person alive."

It's a pleasure to have the opportunity to provide feedback.

Smashing Magazine covers a wide range of topics without necessarily going into depth in any one of them. I'm sure this is a function of wanting to drive traffic from reddit and the like. Understanding and learning takes time which isn't the kind of thing that leads to quick upvotes on the big social media sites. I'm not saying this is right or wrong, merely that this leads to a certain type of article.

Nobody learns to be a rock star developer by merely cutting and pasting code that comes up in a Google search. They work at it through experience, good books, and working with smart people. Design is the same - you can do the equivalent of cutting and pasting some rules, but to become a good designer there's a learning process.

I suggest having content such as a series of articles on one particular aspect of design, leading the reader from fundamentals to more advanced concepts. These articles are unlikely to be quick hits on the social networks, but they create more long-term value that keeps people coming back.

That aside, I think it would benefit Smashing Magazine's brand enormously if you resisted the temptation to run the "N beautiful pictures of Y" articles. No doubt they're quick hits for social media, but they come at the price of diluting the value of Smashing Magazine.

The best advice I can give is: Don't use Smashing Magazine as a source of design education. Their articles are superficial at best and I've never seen one written by anyone who exhibits real expertise in the topic. Learn the basics first - color theory, composition, etc - from good art or design texts, and from learning to draw.

Excellent choice. A tip to other would be visitors to DC: Pizza Paradiso has a beer list that would impress any serious beer aficionado, and it worth going to just for that. And unlike a lot of places with a good beer list, the beers are fresh and the list changes regularly.

Back on topic, I found DC area to be not particularly geared towards startups. There is a lot of IT/software business in the area, but it's overwhelmingly about government contracts. It's not like SF or Seattle where real products and companies are getting invented, built, funded, etc every day.

While DC is an interesting place to live for a short while, I can't really recommend it as a destination. The traffic is horrendous. The climate is weird (how a place can be so sticky and humid in summer, and so bone-chillingly cold in winter, I'll never know). The culture is not especially geared towards entrepreneurial types. And it's expensive.

I'm a huge fan of Bell's (and am currently missing it terribly), but to be fair I feel there are better breweries out there - granted, not many, but they do exist.

Is there a site somewhere that lists which registrars are owned by enom and/or Demand Media? I want to make sure I don't unwittingly use or recommend anything owned by these companies.

Does anyone know if there are enough compatible libraries out there to make using Python 3 in production viable yet? Last time I looked into it (about 6 months ago), it was a non-starter for me.

Here's the thing though: when the bank made a mistake, you had recourse. You actually had someone to complain to - you could go to a branch or otherwise deal with a human. With paypal, you have no recourse, except to hope your case gets voted to the top of Reddit and some paypal insider takes pity on you.

I take what this guy writes on statistics with a large grain of salt; despite the domain name the author is not an economist. He is an MD and it goes without saying that he's very smart and accomplished -- but not in the field of statistics.

This is relevant to this particular article, because he may be missing subtle, but important factors that a lay-person would miss. For example, see yummyfajita's post in this discussion.

As a hiring manager, I can vouch for this. Just having a cover letter at all (whether in the email or as a separate document) is surprisingly unusual. Having one tailored to the position? Vanishingly rare. If the candidate describes how their experience is a fit for the position, they're almost always going to get at least a phone screen from me.

Let's say we buy into the Java Trap Hypothesis; the question then is: what's next? What do you choose if you're a corporation with large projects and large teams of mostly non-rockstar developers. For the sake of the argument let's assume the JVM is out, and you can't use .Net (e.g. need Linux, or more flexible licensing, etc). I'm curious what people would choose, if given a clean slate for this kind of situation.

I suppose this is feasible if Microsoft is looking to acquire Adobe's enterprise customer base - the PDF, document management, etc part of the company. Having Air/Flex/Flash might also be nice, but doesn't seem like a good fit for Microsoft's traditional Windows-centric strategy (one they should abandon, in my view - the days of owning the market via the desktop are rapidly coming to a close).

What I'd love to see is Microsoft buy the Flash/PDF side of the company, and then the creative arm (CS, the type foundry, lightroom, etc) be spun off into an independent company that was once again run by people passionate about design and great software.

Answering my own question, I found this in the Advertsing Age:

http://adage.com/article?article_id=146353

I don't think this is going to end well for Gap.